Abused Women in Taiwan Who Seek Religious Support

ABSTRACT

This research explores the types of religious healing that abused women use and surveys their experiences with these practices in Taiwan. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of abused women, who had been recruited from 12 agencies. The findings show that participants sought religious healing for a variety of reasons, and that they had both positive experiences (e.g., useful religious support) and negative experiences (e.g., encountering deceptive jitongs and spending a large amount of money on services) regardingr the support provided by different religions. This study also found that women who believed in traditional Eastern religions had more negative experiences than women who believed in Western religions.

KEYWORDS:

• abused women
• domestic violence
• religion
• religious services
• Taiwan

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all of the women and agencies who agreed to participate in this study.

Notes

^1. “I-Kuan Tao is the belief in and worship of God (‘Lord of all souls’). It is the Truth inherited from the teachings of Confucius, which is the same Truth taught by the founders of the five world religions.” (Source: I-Kuan Tao Taiwan Headquarters (2016) in http://www.ikuantao.org.tw/modules/weblinks/visit.php?lid=10).

^2. A jitong can be male or female, but is most commonly male. Also called a Taoist spirit medium, a jitong is a person believed to have been chosen by a particular god. They often claim to be a medium for different gods or the ghosts of old doctors; these communications are often translated by an assistant. Sometimes the gods take possession of the jitong at a temple festival. At this point, the jitong, acting as a spirit medium, often starts self-flagellating with spiked bats, swords, and other medieval pain and blood-drawing devices.